----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Ross" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2002 4:37 PM Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] blue angel
> David Megginson wrote: > > Note that some fighter aircraft, like (I think) the F-4, are > > inherently unstable, and if they're modelled correctly we won't be > > able to fly them at all by direct controls: we'll need to work though > > a fairly sophisticated FCS. > > The F-4 is stable. It's actually much older than you think -- it > started life as the McDonell F4H before the 1962 unification of > aircraft identifications. The idea of using statically unstable > aircraft wasn't practical until the advent of cheap computers in the > late 70's. I believe the F-16 was the first operational unstable > aircraft (it was certainly the first in US service, anyway). > Actually the F-4 is unstable, but only marginally. It just means that the plane would eventually diverge if the pilot did nothing to stop it. Rob _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
